It wasn’t bass.

And it wasn’t a Barry White song either.

Well, in all honesty, it actually was a bit of fun. Once you get a good group of people together, fun is inevitable; and these were good people through and through.

The drive back from the Garlic Festival is where all the “fun” began — starting innocently enough with everyone packed into the Jeep and an impromptu sing-a-long to both Flight of the Conchords (do you know what time it is?) albums whilst I carefully navigated dark and rough roads. And then the rain began. It was so thick my roommate commented that it almost looked like a snow storm. Knowing that there were active moose in the area did not help at all, nor did making almost blind turns onto side roads that I couldn’t see until the headlights themselves were turned in that direction — which did make for some tricky turns.

All this was fine though as everyone made it back safely and mostly unbruised. My tent however, was not so lucky. Regardless of the stakes in the ground and utterly ignoring being tied to the fence, the famous Newfoundland breeze completely flipped it over into the weeds soaking everything inside. I really had no idea sleeping bags could be so heavy when so saturated with water. As a side note, I should probably invest in a new sleeping bag. Perhaps something waterproof.

Stopping to take a picture wasn’t really something that seemed like a good idea. Instead it was a mad scramble by everyone to empty the tent of all its contents, collapse it and drag everything inside, while also being equally soaked in the howling rain.

Despite all this, my roommate insisted on sleeping in her (still standing) tent. Somewhat surprisingly, both were still there the next morning.

So, I mentioned earlier that Newfoundland has rough roads. We found a contender for one of these roads and hit a few of the better bumps along the way.

Part way through David Bowie’s greatest hits, we bounced through another pot hole and that’s when the bass really kicked in. Except, it wasn’t the bass at all.

We quickly realized by the additional sound of scraping metal on pavement (certainly not part of that song nor a fancy remix), my catalytic converter was doing something entirely unnatural for such a piece of equipment. That last hit was enough to completely split it in twain, and send the latter half scraping along the ground. The white part? Polished clean by a hundred meters of pavement. Cause that’s how I roll in my Cherokee.

All was not lost though. This great fellow I had met only a few days before finagled this contraption so I could do the three-hour drive back to St. John’s and simultaneously annoy everyone on the highway. The bass was still in effect, but slightly muted and classy as ever.